Victoria Cup Live Blog: Rangers vs. Metallurg Magnitogorsk

Update, 3:50 p.m.: For whatever it’s worth, all four Rangers goals were scored by Americans. OK, I’m out for now. Tom Renney has a conference call with us at 5:30 p.m. I’ll be sure to check in after that.

Update, 3:48 p.m.: Classy move by the likes of Gomez and Drury to have Zherdev and Kalinin claim the Victoria Cup. Or is it because no one else wants to be seen with that trophy?

Update, 3:45 p.m.: Honestly, the Metallurg players look devastated. It’s too bad, but really, just by playing the Rangers as tough as they did, they showed something about their league. By the way, the Victoria Cup might be the ugliest trophy in the history of professional sports. I’d like to know which bar the designer was drinking in when he came up with it.

Update, 3:42 p.m.: Now comes the presentation of the Victoria Cup. Vladislav Tretiak appears on the ice. What do you think he tells the Metallurg players? “You guys don’t know from choking. Victoria Cup? We blew the Olympics!”

Update, 3:40 p.m.:Â Final score: Rangers 4, Metallurg 3. Callahan is all smiles. The Metallurg fans, meanwhile, look like they’re headed to Sibera. Wait, they are headed to Siberia…

Update, 3:39 p.m.: Ryan Callahan scores on a breakaway! The Rangers go ahead 4-3 with 20 seconds remaining. Callahan steals the puck from a Metallurg defenseman then dekes Mezin for the game-winner. And that’s the game.Â A phenomenal comeback. The Rangers look pretty excited for a preseason game.

Update, 3:37 p.m.: Time is winding down in regulation.

Update, 3:33 p.m.: The ice seems really choppy at this point. Al says the Rangers have 40 shots on goal.

Update, 3:31 p.m.: A big stop by Henrik Lundqvist from a shot at point blank range. The King hasn’t seen much this period, but he’s been much sharper as the game has gone on.

Update, 3:28 p.m.: Power play yields little. And now a scuffle breaks out in front, with Petr Prucha in the thick of it. Great play by Marc Staal to intentionally miss the net with a shot to produce a rebound off the end boards. The teams will play 4-on-4.

Update, 3:24 p.m.: Rangers go back on the power play.

Update, 3:21 p.m.: Tie game. Chris Drury stuffs in a rebound of a Scott Gomez shot, then does his best Bobby Orr imitation celebrating as he’s taken down right afterwards.

Man, you think the Metallurg players are sweating that $100,000 bonus right about now? “Call my wife. Tell her no buy BMW yet.”Update, 3:18 p.m.: Zherdev and Dubinsky apply enough pressure to draw a penalty. Those two look like they’re figuring each other out. Tom Renney calls timeout, but it’s Perry Pearn who’s addressing the team.

Update, 3:12 p.m.: Goal. Dan Fritsche races down the right side of the ice and blasts a shot by Mezin. A great pass by Wade Redden to set the whole thing up. It’s 3-2 Metallurg, but the momentum has turned.

Update, 3:09 p.m.: Power play ends without the Rangers sniffing the net again. But another power play is coming.

Update, 3:05 p.m.: Back to Bern, a strange close-up of Drury fixing his visor in slow motion. Rangers start the third on the power play. Al talks about Callahan, Dubinsky and Dawes starting out, and yet the shot is directly of Zherdev.

Update, 3:04 p.m.: Fischler is going off on a tangent about a Bohemian beer garden. Giannone handles a potent situation deftly.

Update, 2:58 p.m.:Â We’re heading to the third period. By our calculations, Rangers need two goals to tie, three to win. But as I’ve said before, math has never been one of my strengths.

Update, 2:51 p.m.: Rangers get on the board thanks to Chris Drury converting on a Nikolai Zherdev pass. It’s 3-1 Metallurg at the end of the second period. But the Rangers still have a power play when the third period starts. Drury was pumped after the goal. Fischler speculates that he’s the next Rangers captain. That’s been my guess all along as well, but we’ll know for sure soon.

Update, 2:49 p.m.: Rangers have their best chance and are thwarted by Mezin. But the Rangers get an extended 5-on-3. Safe to say they need to score here.

Update, 2:47 p.m.: It’s never an encouraging sign when Al says, “The Rangers are trying to get a goal in this game” and the close-up is of Blair Betts.

Update, 2:45 p.m.: It might simply be a result of having his lines jumbled by the penalties, but Tom Renney now has Markus Naslund skating with Brandon Dubinsky.

Update, 2:40 p.m.: A phenomenal rush by Marc Staal produces a scoring chance, but nothing more. Now Wade Redden gets called for a hook, giving Metallurg a brief 5-on-3. Why do I get the sense that penalties will be part of the post-game conversation for the Rangers?

Update, 2:36 p.m.: Another power play for the Rangers….which is quickly nullified by a holding call on Markus Naslund. A questionable call, but avoidable in the offensive zone.

Update: 2:33 p.m.: Wow. Another power play goal by Metallurg. A shot from the point, a redirection in front. The good news is Lundqvist never had a chance. But it’s still 3-0 Metallurg.

Update, 2:30 p.m.: Rangers go nowhere on the power play. Then comes a giveaway and a penalty by Petr Prucha. Not a good sign for a kid who is still struggling.

Update, 2:27 p.m.: Another Rangers power play coming after a scoring chance by Brandon Dubinsky.

Update, 2:20 p.m.: It’s nice to see Michal Rozsival is back to his old self — which is to say, showing absolutely no urgency on the power play. Rangers apply decent pressure, but have nothing to show for it.

Update, 2:18 p.m.:Â Second period starts, and the Rangers draw an early power play. A goal here would be a significant moment-turner.

Update, 2:11 p.m.: Since many of you have asked, I’m told Tom Renney’s plan is to name a captain while in Prague, but before Saturday’s game. So that leaves tomorrow or more likely Friday as possibilities. We’ll have the coach and the new captain on a conference call when that happens, so stay tuned.

As for cuts, count on those being made in the same time frame. One will certainly be Miika Wiikman, but two more need to be made as well. It looks like it will be between Fritsche, Rissmiller, Sjostrom and Korpikoski up front, and Potter and Fahey at defense. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just the two defensemen who get cut, and the team carries 15 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies.

Update, 2:07 p.m.: Referencing his own experiences against the Russians, Maloney talks about their overwhelming…..body odor. “They stunk but they were good when they came to play,” he says. I have nothing else to add.

Update, 2:04 p.m.: I love how both Dave Maloney and Stan Fischler avoid at all costs naming any of the Mettallurg players, instead referring to the “Mettallurg goaltender” or “the Russian players.” I’d give them even more heat, but I’ve been doing the same thing.

Update, 2:03 p.m.: Rangers turn up the heat at the end of the first, but end theÂ period in a 2-0 hole. Territorially, they’ve been the better team at even strength, but like I said, they need to stay out of the box.

Update, 2:01 p.m.: Slap shot from the point and through traffic, trickles past Lundqvist. Mettalurg goes up 2-0. Soft goal. It’s apparent the Rangers need to stay out of the box.

Update, 1:59 p.m.: Another Rangers penalty, this time on the bearded one, Paul Mara

Update, 1:58 p.m.: Al talks about a Metallurg player showing some “quick speed.” You know, as opposed to that other kind of speed…

Update, 1:54 p.m.: Korpikoski wheels around the net and throws a shot on goal. The kid has to be a lock to make this team.

Update, 1:52 p.m.: Al espouses on the stellar defensive hockey being played so far. Which is a nice way of saying the game has hit a lull.

Update, 1:49 p.m.: Yet another sign that this is an important game: Paul Mara is back with the lumberjack beard.

Update, 1:47 p.m.: Blatant interference on Naslund. He goes to the box for Mettalurg’s second power play.

Update, 1:43 p.m.: Nothing doing on the power play. George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” can be heard in the background. Not sure what that signifies, but it has to mean something.

Update, 1:42 p.m.: The Rangers draw their first power play. They scored six yesterday against Bern, but it’s apparent Mettalurg is a significant step up.

Update, 1:35 p.m.: Oh boy. Nikolai Zherdev coughs up the puck in the offensive zone. Mettalurg goes down the other way and beats Lundqvist with a wrist shot high on the glove side. 1-0 Mettallurg. We have ourselves a ballgame…

Update, 1:33 p.m.: Rangers start with the Gomez between Drury and Naslund, with Rozsival and Redden on the back end. The King is in the net…

Update, 1:31 p.m.: Micheletti hints that Metallurg players are starting at a $100,000 bonus per man if they win. But hey, no pressure…

Update, 1:30 p.m.: Giannone trips on “Magnitogorsk” right from the start, then says it won’t happen again. Careful there, Johnny. We’re watching. Cut to Al and Joe in Bern, where Rev. Al has ditched the questionable red sweater from the day before. Even more confirmation that this is a bigger game.

Earlier: We’re minutes away from the start of the Victoria Cup and here at Blog Headquarters, I just downed a turkey sandwich. Between that and Fran Healy on the “Halls of Fame”, I’m….suddenly…feeling…very….sleepy.

Not sure if anyone else hear Al and Joe talk about this during the opening minutes. They said that tonight there are three players wearing “A”s but that Renney said that within the next few days (before the season starts) he will indeed decide upon 1 captain for his team. Let’s make it Drury, give an A to Gomer and I would like to give the other A to Dubinsky – but don’t think it will happen. I could see Renney giving it to Naslund or Redden probably. I like when they are given to at least some True Blue guys who are homegrown or who have been with us the last few years.

As the Rangers will have to deal with thier glut of 3rd and 4th line forwards here in the next few days as they cut their roster – who do you see staying and who will be sent down? Any chance the Rangers make a move – pick up someone off the waiver wire, make a trade, such as Prucha perhaps or make a move of some sort.

“not looked strong” is a really nice way of saying it. He’s been plain awful. And the team in front of him doesn’t look good playing anybody other than my kid’s mite squad so far. Either there’s a lot of coming togethre tha’s going to happen or we’re in for a long year….

Henke needs to stop acting like his knees aren’t bothering him. He clearly can’t move like he could and in the game I saw live, he wasn’t getting up fast at all. Sit out for the first month and just rest him and let Vally hold the fort. Vally can definately do it and Henke needs to let his pride go and understand that he is nothing to us if he can’t be healthy for the whole season.

Always something with the Rangers, Lundqvist if you are hurt speak up….nows not the time to be playing through pain…Sam, Steve Zipay do what you are good at and find the truth alot of bad rumors floating around

orts41 – Yeah, they said that last game, too, like I remarked to you in a previous post. Dubinsky seems from his talk off the ice that he could handle it, but I haven’t seen him be overly vocal on the ice. I think it would be a nice jesture, though Redden has a long contract, and the A might be good for him from the team’s view.

Is it bad that I’m already coming up with excuses?
1. It’s the second of a back-to-back.
2. It is still preseason.
3. Bigger ice surface, with better team than yesterday.

The knee rumors aren’t rumors. Henke said it himself. This is directly from the Brooks article.

“I took one cortisone shot in each knee during the first week of August, and that’s it,” said The King, who stopped all 12 shots he faced in playing the first two periods of the RangersNew York Rangers ‘ 2-1 preseason Garden victory over Ottawa last night. “I can still feel twinges once in a while, I have to extend my stretching routine and I have to [ease into] warmups, but it isn’t anything that’s going to affect my game.”

Lundqvist was not compromised in either the ensuing Game 5 overtime defeat in Pittsburgh that ended the Rangers’ season or in the World Championship Tournament in which he represented Sweden a week later.

“I could feel it,” said Lundqvist. “I knew I couldn’t hurt myself by playing, but when I was still feeling pain over the summer, I went for the shots after talking it over with the Rangers and the [medical] staff.

“The only time I notice it now is if I don’t stretch properly, or if I forget and start to kick out at the first few shots I see at the start of warmups. I can also feel it a little bit when I stretch at an [extreme] angle, so I’m trying to stay more compact in my movements.

“That’s what Benny [goaltending coach Benoit Allaire] wants me to do anyway, so maybe this is going to work out to be positive for me.”

Renney should have dressed Orr for this game. These Russians are getting pissy and throwing mini cheap shots. That’s how all russian hockey players are. Just ask Ovechkin when he tried to murder Briere, or Kovalchuk when he tried to murder Rozsival.

I like how Dru got a little fired up and started throwing hits after he was head locked by that douche.

I’ve been saying it since last season: This team needs a quality backup. Well, there were more than a few available this past summer, and instead we’re stuck with Valliquette. Nice guy, but if Hank’s knees are really damaged, Valli isn’t going to be able to keep the team afloat.

Henrik 2 -rangers 0,
I thought pre-season was to get ready to play the regular season, maybe those knees are worse than we are led to believe.Still the first goal looked like it glanced off his mitt and the second he was slow to react.No cohesion or sense of offense, skate ,dump it in, throw a shot on goal isnt working so far.

Like it or not, maybe like Prucha, Lunqvist better days may be behind him . If you start the season less than 100 % and injured ,I doubt if you’ll get better without rest,surgery ,etc.And Valle as an occasional back up is fine ,but long term aint gonna cut it.

I kick Metallurgs ass when I play them with the St Pete Peters( or whatever our nickname is)….no problem-thro a few elbows, crack a couple of kidneys, one or two mother insults and they fold like siberian tents in a blizzard

I noticed one thing with this game and other ones. When we play back to back games, we take a lot of penalties. Its like we get lazy. When we are fresh, we draw so many. When we aren’t, we get lazy and don’t skate as fast and take bad penalties. Thats one thing to be concerned about.

Hopefully Hank doesn’t give a flying fugg aboot the pre season games, and is just taking this easy. Im not ready to panic over this. Huet gave up 7 goals the other night, so until Hank gives up 7, then ill go a little crazy. Hopefully it doesn’t happen though.

Rangers are trying to do too much individually. Too much dipsy-doo through the middle and get it poke checked away. Instead of gaining the zone, and taking advantage of the larger ice to make better passes and get open for a shot. Unlike the Metallurg, who is getting in front of the net, creating traffic and firing a shot through traffic. The Russians are playing a better NHL game than the Rangers

doak – Replay at 8:00 p.m. on MSG. It’s gonna be 120 minutes, but that’s more than the time the game took, so all footage should be there, unless MSG decides it wants more commercials. I would hope they cut out intermission time instead, though, in that case.

I don’t know, he’s pretty close. He’s from the Ukraine, and was born while it was part of the Soviet Union. He later moved to what is now Russia to play hockey at like 14 and has Russian citizenship. So, I’d say he’s about as close to Russian as you could get without being Russian.

I don’t know, Sam, the trophy looks pretty cool, especially when it glows. I like those hockey sticks in there. Maybe a little hokey, but it’s alright. Could be a little bigger, though. It still begs the question what sense did it make to have the Rangers competing for the Victoria Cup. Why not the Penguins instead? I’m still happy to have the team that won the first one!

YAY! Sam got his spelling right! Good blogging today; even if it’s not in person, live at a game, you should do this for more games during the regular season if you don’t have to attend to home life. We always need some good humor for those tough losses.

What a great come back, thank god they didn’t lose this. You gotta show that the NHL is the best league in the world. For the most part that’s what this was aboot. If we get beat by some random KHL team, then other players will probably think that league is as tough as the NHL, but the only difference is i can make a shit load more cash than i can in the NHL.

I think its obvious at this point who should be Capo. Dru was fired up, he was great, and he deserves it for sure. Cally was awesome, and Al and Joe called it, they said they deserve to score the winner, and sure enough Cally makes a great play.

Al Trautwigs call on that goal was HILARIOUS, i was cracking up so hard.

The announcer was hilarious when he was asking the fans to “make some nooooiize” for the refs. Funny moment.

I felt bad for the Russian team in a way, the fans boo’d them a little when they were getting there medals.

This might be a pre season game, but it was fun. F anyone who thinks its pathetic to get excited over a game like this. I jumped out of my couch, and went crazy when Dru, and especially Cally scored.

Hopefully Hank is better though. That’s something to still worry aboot, but he made some nice saves to keep Nyr in it. Also hopefully Korpedo makes the team. I guess we’ll know soon enough, but at this point, i think he is, unless they sign Shanny.

Drury will be the captain of this team. . . . which is kinda like being an engineer on one of those Los Angeles commuter trains. . . . while texting. . . . .with another train in front of you. . . . . .yeah.

My favorite post from that blog, by Roadhouse Ellie, repeated three times for good measure:

*Avery- Useless, lazy, selfish attention whore. Last on the ice at practice, first off. No attention paid to Tippett, Avery tends to skate around in his own little Avery-World, leaning or sprawling far away from the team itself. Game time sees Little Sean crying for attention, yapping at opponents then scuttling away when the action gets too hot. What has he done in three games besides negate power plays for Dallas and take up a valuable roster spot that could have been used to showcase, oh.. let’s say, a SCORING winger? Dallas record with Avery on the roster? 0-3. If Dallas can find some mindless GM to dump that ridiculous contract on, take it and run. Sorry, Hully, he has already embarassed the franchise just by showing up.*

‘Sorry folks, Renney gets 30 â€“ 40 games to prove he can coach without Jags and Shanny around, and then itâ€™s Tortorella time for me.”
Vogs

I keep saying Sather gets all the heat, all the time, Renney gets none…Sather says “I’m sorry to burden you with hall of famers, stanley cup champions and a 200th draft pick all star goalie what do you need me to do Professor Renney? personally re-institute total nuetral trap rules??”

avery wore out his welcome here though. My buddy worked the youth camp with Orr, staal and some others and they all said he became a real pain in the locker room. Gomez happened to stop by and even he said they all felt better off without him just because he never did any team activities and did everything on his own time. He never called out himself but he was the 1st to blame everyone else.

That’s straight from the guys in the locker room so if they are happy he’s gone, we should be too (even though he was entertaining).

Drury will be captain, since Joe talks about how great he is every time he gets a sip of water. Good game. Tired of the boring North American grit story. Metallurg was crushed by Jagr’s Omsk team — maybe they’re not that good.

Just to be clear, in case you didn’t click on the link, not everything is negative about Avery, but the majority are negative comments and the people seem to think the negatives outweigh the positives with him.

“Update, 3:05 p.m.: Back to Bern, a strange close-up of Drury fixing his visor in slow motion. Rangers start the third on the power play. Al talks about Callahan, Dubinsky and Dawes starting out, and yet the shot is directly of Zherdev.

Update, 3:04 p.m.: Fischler is going off on a tangent about a Bohemian beer garden. Giannone handles a potent situation deftly.”

2) I think Avery could have been good for the game of hockey and the NHL. He might have become the face of the league, on Broadway, here in the ”media capital of the world,” along with Sid and Ovi.

IMHO, a popular game (and league) is a healthy one. Having no opportunity to hear inside the.locker room, I can only go by what I know: a) NYR won more with #16 in the lineup, and b) during 07-08 playoffs, he kept his elbows down, took very few penalties, and refused to be goaded into anything not of his choosing. These are qualities of a mature(ing) player, and not a waste of spot.

I, for one, will miss him, his ‘antics,’ and his contributions, very much. But like Grampa always said, “never look in another man’s wallet.”

3) It would indeed be a wonderful fairy tale to see Shanny skate out with the “C” on his chest! [or skate out at all.]